Shrewsbury B team enjoyed a truncated evening on their latest outing to Newport when we faced their B team.
Not for the first time this season we were forced to default a board with both Tony and Ian unavailable. Even so, we approached the match with confidence, as our four were pretty strong. Added to this, Newport were missing some of the players who gave us a hard time earlier in the season.
Board 1 saw Ile with White take on Danny Griffiths. No prizes for guessing Ile’s first move: 1.b4! Danny reacted with the line I was shown when I first saw this opening; he played 1…e5 followed by a trade of his e-Pawn for Ile’s b-Pawn.
On board 2, I had black against Stuart Ross. I hadn’t played Stuart for a few years but in both our previous encounters I had had Black and played Alekhine’s defence, winning one and losing one. I thought perhaps I’d better play another way, which for me against 1.e4 means a Sicilian. Stuart played an Open set up and I found myself defending a mainline Sicilian for the first time in a couple of years. Munroe Morrison, who was involved in the night’s other match against Newport juniors, happened to wander past at about this point and, as an Alekhine enthusiast himself (by my reckoning there are 3 of us in Shropshire), jovially took me to task afterwards. This must surely be the only example of a player employing the Dragon variation being accused of wimping out!
Board 3 saw another Sicilian, this time Ivor’s beloved Morra gambit (Ivor is the only person I know who habitually refers to it as the Smith Morra gambit). I have to confess that I have been known to be somewhat sceptical about the worth of this opening, so I guess it’s only fair to point out that, on this occasion, it worked beautifully for Ivor. His opponent, Chris Paul, had clearly not faced the Morra for a long time, if at all, and went wrong almost straight away, allowing an early e5 from Ivor, which cut his position in half. Ivor was a pawn down, true, but he had massive compensation and by move 10, his position already looked won to me.
On board 4, Ted Eales played the Caro Kann in reply to David Lovegrove’s 1.e4. Ted’s position looked very comfortable to me.
Ile looked to be doing well against Danny and was dominating the centre. It was interesting to get his thoughts afterwards, both on the play in this game and the Sokolsky in general. He explained that essentially White’s game is positionally motivated but that often players with the Black pieces don’t appreciate this and neglect the centre. This appeared to be happening here.
Meanwhile, I was trying to remember how to conduct the defence of the Dragon properly and not doing it particularly well! Stuart chose a logical line of the Yugoslav attack with Qd2 and Queen side castling, without immediately committing his light squared Bishop. In the end, I succeeded in remembering a line from the book on the Dragon that I’d read a year or so back; a bad one for Black! Fortunately, I realised that I’d gone a bit wrong and prepared to defend .
Soon we had the first result of the night. Chris Paul never succeeded in getting out of the mess he was in and resigned rather than be subjected to further suffering; a triumph for the Morra!
Ted now had a fantastic position on board 4 and Ile looked bound to break through the centre against Danny. I then had a bit of luck, as Stuart played somewhat inaccurately and wasted a move, which allowed me back into the game. There followed a forced sequence and I was again a bit fortunate, as I missed one of his moves, which meant I had to look for a saving resource, which rather luckily existed, forcing massive exchanges. The resulting Rook and opposite coloured Bishop ending was ok for me; perhaps even a bit better.
Suddenly, the match result was decided. David Lovegrove shipped a piece in an admittedly already wretched position against Ted and resigned a couple of minutes later. Ile’s dismantling of Danny’s position was complete and Danny resigned.
This being the case I offered Stuart a draw, which he accepted. I would probably have played on had there been anything other than game points riding on the result. The ending was quite complex and it seemed to me that any advantage that there was was mine but it was equally clear that trying to win it would take up the rest of the evening.
Mark Smith, B Team Captain